Oyster Creek Nuke Plant Back Online

LACEY TOWNSHIP, N.J. (AP) -- The nation's oldest operating nuclear plant is back online following a month-long outage for refueling and maintenance.

The Oyster Creek nuclear plant in Lacey Township returned to service at 7:18 a.m. Thursday.

Workers replaced both of the plant's main power transformers, refueled the reactor and did maintenance that can only be performed while the unit is offline.

The transformer replacement cost $33 million.

Another $13.3 million is being spent on underground piping work to deal with a tritium leak on plant grounds.

Oyster Creek produces 636 megawatts of electricity an hour, enough to power 600,000 homes.

(Copyright 2010 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.)